


pit of the soul

by atlantisairlock



Category: Military Wives (2020)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst with a Happy Ending, Developing Relationship, F/F, Fix-It, Friends to Lovers, Minor Character Death, Near Death Experiences, Pregnancy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-16
Updated: 2020-11-16
Packaged: 2021-03-09 20:20:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,170
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27591937
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/atlantisairlock/pseuds/atlantisairlock
Summary: Kate Barkley has lived quite a life. Twenty years later, she's given another chance. Lisa's with her.AU where Kate is pregnant after Richard leaves for his fifth tour + fix-it for 'Such A Rush' where Kate carries her pregnancy to term.
Relationships: Kate Barkley/Lisa Lawson
Comments: 4
Kudos: 15





	pit of the soul

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Such A Rush](https://archiveofourown.org/works/27566002) by [ensorcel](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ensorcel/pseuds/ensorcel). 



> ensorcel: so kate gets pregnant in this fic but she loses the baby but it's okay she still gets a happy ending with lisa -  
> me: **[no](https://i.imgur.com/6cpffM4.jpg)**
> 
> with ensorcel's blessing, here is the spinoff slash fixit for the amazing fic 'such a rush' because I JUST WANT KATE TO BE HAPPY + RAISE A BABY WITH LISA OKAY LET MY GAY ASS LIVE. read that one before reading this one for this to make more sense.
> 
> title from one of my favourite orphan black quotes - 'i have a theory: before we leave this life, we see what we love. I mean, 'pit of the soul, can't live without it' love. and if it's strong enough, sometimes we find our way back'.

The day after Kate first admits to another human being that she’s incubating a new life inside her body, twenty years after the last time she successfully did so, she gets two men at her front door giving her the worst news she could possibly imagine, and part of her wonders if that’s a karmic punishment for the fact that it wasn’t Richard to whom she’d admitted that truth.

For the rest of her life - whatever else her years bring her, whatever happiness falls into her lap - that haunts her. The fact that Lisa was the first person in the entire world to know, and that Richard never even got to. It’s the forefront thought on her mind that afternoon, after she’s left alone in her empty home to cry, and scream, and sleep.

The house is still empty when she wakes up again, shadows spilling into every corner. Sourness lingers on her tongue as she struggles off the couch to hit a light switch and augment the dusk. She’s not sure what time it is. She’s not sure of - anything, really, only that Richard is dead, and Jamie is dead, and it feels like she might as well be too, because she hasn’t been alone for half her life and now she is, she is, and she doesn’t know how to be -

She doesn’t even realise she’s pulled Richard’s good whiskey from its spot on the shelf until an unexpected voice lets out a sharp exclamation from behind her and suddenly there are hands over hers, hands pulling the bottle from her grasp and setting it aside. “Kate! What are you doing?”

Kate barely feels startled, shocked that Lisa, of all people - of course Lisa, of all people - has somehow appeared in her kitchen. She makes a half-hearted, ineffectual grab for the bottle, and Lisa shoves it further down the counter. Her hand finds Kate’s, a defensive movement more than anything, stopping Kate in her tracks. “Kate,” she repeats, softer but no less firm. “What are you doing? You know you can’t drink.”

“Why not,” is Kate’s dull reply - she can’t for the life of her think of a reason not to, not right now, when all she wants is to let the alcohol do its work and make her forget, if just for tonight, forget how she’s the one who’s been left to survive everything she’s lost and lost and lost, it feels like all she’s done the past twenty years is lose things -

“What do you mean ‘why not’? You’re _pregnant,”_ Lisa exclaims, knocking Kate out of her reverie, just a little. Kate notices vaguely that Lisa’s put the bottle back on a high shelf where it doesn’t belong, but she’s still holding on tight to Kate’s hand. “Come on, I - go sit down, okay? I’ll get you some water instead.”

 _I don’t want water, I just want to forget, I want it to stop, I want it all to stop, leave me alone, let me go -_ Kate wants to say any of it, or all of it, but all she manages is an increasingly short, ragged series of breaths, a noise rattling from the back of her throat, high and terrible, her eyes blurring with tears. She blinks, just once, and suddenly Lisa’s arms are around her and she’s making fists in the fabric of Lisa’s shirt, sobbing against her shoulder - the kitchen seems to echo with her hysterical crying, and Lisa’s silent. Lisa just holds her and doesn’t stop, until Kate’s knees are shaking and Lisa gently maneuvers them both and then Kate finds herself seated on the cool tile, back against a cabinet and still clinging to Lisa like she’ll shatter if she doesn’t.

“He’s dead,” she hears - realises, eventually, the words are coming from her own mouth. “He’s dead, he’s dead, he’s - he didn’t know, and now he never will, he’ll never know and neither will my baby, they’ll never know their father or their older brother, they’ll be alone, _I’ll_ be alone, and I can’t, Lisa, I can’t do this alone, I just can’t - “

Lisa’s kept quiet as Kate rambles uncontrollably, but she stiffens at that and Kate feels the hand around her shoulder tighten briefly. “You won’t be alone.” She takes Kate’s hand again with a gentleness Kate didn’t know Lisa possessed and guides it to her abdomen, the telltale swell still barely visible. Lisa’s breath is warm against her cheek, speaking softly right into her ear. “Kate, you are not alone.”

And Kate’s not so foolish to believe she can suddenly hear a tiny heartbeat, believe she can feel movement under her palm, through the skin, but she can feel Lisa’s - her pulse steady against Kate’s wrist, fingers lightly interlaced with Kate’s, resting over her stomach. The statement suddenly feels - _real,_ in a way it hasn’t since Jamie died, since Richard left.

_You are not alone._

A shuddering sob wracks her entire body, and she turns her face back into Lisa’s shoulder, cries until she’s all cried out, and Lisa murmurs it to her, over and over again, like a prayer, like a promise. _You are not alone._

The top brass organises Richard’s funeral. She helps. Maybe. Kate’s not sure. Nothing about that week seems real - like she got the news and then she blinked and suddenly she was standing in the cemetery watching them lower his casket into the earth and the world was still turning even though her son was dead and her husband had followed.

Lisa holds her hand while the guns fire. She never leaves Kate’s side, helps her into a chair during the reception and brings her tea like Kate’s a goddamn invalid and Kate might be annoyed if she remembered how to feel that way. If she remembered how to feel anything but empty inside. Her smile is frozen to her face while the other women give their condolences and she doesn’t think anything can shake it until they start talking about pulling out of the Albert Hall and something flicks on inside Kate, rusty but familiar; _fear._ “What? No, we can’t pull out now. It would be - it would be utterly inappropriate.”

All of them stare at her like she’s lost her mind; their expressions are tempered by pity and Kate feels stirrings of indignation and anger in her chest, until Lisa’s hand finds her arm and gently gestures to have her on her feet. “Guys, just - give me a second with Kate, okay?” She leads them both away from the choir, into a quieter corner, without letting go of Kate’s arm. “Kate, they’re not - they’re doing this because - “

“I don’t need them to _pull out_ of the Albert Hall for me,” says Kate. “That’s not what I - “ _I need them,_ she thinks, with a sort of raw desperation she doesn’t want to shape into words. “You promised me I wouldn’t be alone.”

Lisa’s expression goes soft, achingly beautiful, completely devoid of pity and Kate loves her for it in that moment. “Okay,” she eventually responds. “We’ll discuss it at the next practice. We’ll work it out.”

Kate nods jerkily, quelling the wave of relief crashing over her so it doesn’t spill past her lips. Lisa stays beside her when they return to the choir, takes her home after, stays to make Kate dinner, brew her tea, stays - keeps staying. She slips into bed beside Kate when she turns in, like it’s a familiar routine, and Kate blinks twice in surprise before hazy memories of the past week filter back in and she suddenly realises it _has_ become a routine for them. Lisa’s stayed, every single day, since the night she came and stopped Kate from drinking herself stupid right after she got the news. Lisa promised she wouldn’t be alone, and she wasn’t.

“You should go home,” Kate murmurs, because something twists strangely under her ribcage when she thinks about Lisa having shared her bed for days, being strong for Kate when she couldn’t be strong for herself. “Have you really stayed here the whole week? How about Frankie?”

Lisa hums drowsily. “Stayed with Annie. And at a friend’s. She’s not stupid, she knows you need someone.”

Lisa says _you need someone_ and Kate hears _you need me_ and it scares her, that it probably isn’t what Lisa means but definitely holds true. She opens her mouth to repeat to Lisa that she should go home, then thinks about how Lisa probably will, tomorrow, now that Richard’s buried - about how her bed and home will be cold again, how she’ll have to move off the base into a drab little flat whose halls have never been paced by Richard and Jamie, and she falters.

The room is dark but for the barest hint of moonlight; Kate sees it glint off Lisa’s hair, just illuminating her face. Her eyes are closed, already asleep, breathing slowly. Kate looks at her, unblinking, trying to commit the image to memory. She’d never tried, with Richard. Part of her had never truly believed she would have to - would need something to remember because she wouldn’t be able to just turn in bed and see it before her eyes.

She thinks she’s forgetting the shape of Richard’s face in midnight blackness and it makes her panicky, and she doesn’t want to forget this either -

The choir elects to keep on going with the performance - Kate suspects it’s because Lisa went to bat for her, asked them to do it ‘for Kate’, and she can’t find it in herself to be anything but grateful. They decide to write their own song, because nothing else out there is really written for them or about them. It’s Lisa’s idea to use words and phrases from their letters. The wives hand her photocopies of selected letters for her to draw content from and she starts assembling a pretty impressive binder of papers she brings around with her everywhere she goes.

A week passes from Richard’s funeral, then another. Lisa comes over every single day without fail, even the days Kate knows she’s got a double shift at the store and she’s exhausted. She doesn’t stay overnight any more, but they work on the performance side by side. Kate throws herself into organising a minute-to-minute, booking a coach, figuring out dress codes. It feels like she’s a beginning teacher again, organising field trips for her students - hard and frequently tedious busywork that keeps her distracted. She taps away at her laptop while Lisa makes a mess of her coffee table, loose sheets of paper strewn everywhere. She’s got a terrible habit of chewing her pens while she thinks and Kate feels like she ought to be concerned that she’s more endeared by it than revolted.

Lisa’s there. Every night. She makes tea for both of them, piping hot. When she’s frustrated trying to put the song together she leans against the couch, head tipped back on the cushions looking up at Kate and asks her for feedback, for critique, and sometimes, when Kate can tell she’s feeling tired and brave, she asks about the pregnancy. They swap stories, Lisa recounting how hard it was to be pregnant with Frankie too, how she’d decided after an eighteen-hour birth that she was never doing that again.

“Was it harder? Jamie’s pregnancy?” Lisa asks, patient, curious, conversational, and Kate can’t remember. Every memory she has of Jamie is coloured, now, by the day she came home to find a black car in her driveway and Richard crying. Kate rests a hand on her stomach, the curve of it getting a little more pronounced every week. “I can’t remember,” she admits. She glances at Lisa, who has her eyes closed, hair fanned out against the couch cushions beside Kate, dark circles under her eyes. She looks tired, but the corners of her lips are turned up, and she’s obviously waiting for Kate to say more. Kate bites her lip and remembers sitting outside the bar, telling Lisa she was pregnant - the first person to know, and still the only person to know right now. “It was harder - losing them.” She swallows and forces the word past her lips, a stone falling into the ground. “Miscarrying.”

Lisa’s eyes fly open; she turns, sharply, then reaches for Kate’s hand and gives it a squeeze. “I didn’t know. I’m so sorry, Kate.”

She doesn’t say more than that, doesn’t push, doesn’t ask; months ago Kate would’ve been surprised but she isn’t any more. She knows Lisa better now. Knows her dedication, her loyalty, her kindness. Lisa just lets them sit in comfortable silence for a while, until she shakes herself back to alertness and returns to scanning one of Hilary’s letters while Kate writes another email. Just another night. Together.

Lisa’s songwriting sessions in Kate’s living room get a little more frenzied as the days tick closer to the Festival of Remembrance. She scribbles furiously and becomes more reticent and tense, so obviously frustrated that Kate doesn’t dare to ask if she’s okay. She tries not to worry about the song not being finished even two days before the performance. She has faith in Lisa. She’ll work it out.

Neither she nor Lisa go dress shopping with the wives the day before; Lisa’s still frantically trying to finish the song and Kate doesn’t want to chance the women noticing anything different about her. Not yet. She’s not ready. The thought of talking about the pregnancy with anyone besides Lisa irrationally terrifies her, makes it feel too real.

She drives further out to a quieter town instead, finds a suitable dress that obscures her figure so nobody can tell she’s just beginning to show. She shows it to Lisa when Lisa comes over that night as usual; Lisa looks stressed and distracted but she tells Kate it looks lovely and smiles genuinely until Kate tells her where she got it. Her brow furrows. “You drove that far out on your own? Why didn’t you tell me? I would have come with you.”

“You were busy,” says Kate. “And it was fine, Lisa, it was just a drive out. I’m _pregnant,_ not dying, I can still take a drive on my own, you know.”

“I just worry about you,” says Lisa. It comes out quickly, with a slight wince tagged on to the end, like Lisa’s embarrassed she said it. It makes Kate’s heart skip a little, though. She shoots Lisa a grateful smile to acknowledge her concern. “You were busy.”

Lisa sighs and scrubs a hand through her hair, the furrow between her brows deepening. “Yeah. I was. I’m still… that’s actually what I need to talk to you about.”

“Okay,” Kate says slowly, trying not to be concerned. Lisa looks frustrated and anxious but not in despair, so Kate doesn’t think they’re up shit creek without a paddle for the performance tomorrow, but it’s never good when their songwriter is still having issues less than twenty-four hours before they’re due in London. Lisa takes a deep breath, like she’s steeling herself, and looks Kate in the eye. “I’m having trouble with the second verse. I have been for a while, I was just stuck, I didn’t know what to do. And - you’re, Kate, you’re the only one who doesn’t have a line in the song. And I thought of something, something that could work, but I didn’t want to put it in without asking you first.” She opens her trusty notebook and shows Kate a handwritten set of lines. Underlined, in bright blue ink - _till we laugh again._

She stares at the words for a very long time. Stares until she hears Lisa quietly, uncertainly say her name before looking back up. She’s biting her lip, eyes wide and soft, and those dark circles are still there. Kate wonders how many nights she’s stayed up in her bedroom, after leaving Kate’s place, trying and trying to write their choir’s song, make it perfect. She thinks about all the nights they sat together, Lisa listening to Kate talk about her pregnancy and offering her own stories in return. Lisa’s been listening to her, remembering what she says and keeping them close. Lisa promised she wouldn’t be alone.

She leans forward and kisses Lisa, a quick, thoughtless thing. Lisa’s breath hitches, taken by surprise. For a moment, she doesn’t kiss back, and Kate withdraws, worried she’s irrevocably messed things up, but Lisa shakes her head and cups her face with long fingers before she can pull back too far and closes the distance again. Lisa kisses her, again and again, sweet, light touches of her lips against Kate’s. Her laughter is a little breathless when she leans her forehead against Kate’s, eyes closed, smile wide. “So - can I use Jamie’s line?”

“Yes,” Kate whispers. “Yes, yes - “ Lisa’s already moving in to kiss her again, gently tugging Kate close to straddle her lap, arms settling around her waist, and Kate doesn’t want to stop. Doesn’t ever want to let go.

The performance at the Albert Hall is nothing short of incredible. They get a standing ovation and Lisa slips her hand in Kate’s and Kate feels her eyes fill as she soaks in the roar of applause resounding in the space, so loud it feels like it could be heard from miles away. She thinks _Richard,_ and _Jamie,_ and then Lisa squeezes her hand tight and Kate thinks _listen, baby, can you hear that? Look what your mum and her choir managed to do. Mummy loves this choir so much, and all the people in it, and she can’t wait to have you meet them -_

She steals a glance at Lisa, only to find her looking at her instead of the thousands-strong crowd on their feet cheering them. Her eyes sparkle. _I love you,_ she mouths, and Kate doesn’t pull her into a kiss right there on the stage, but oh, how she wants to. How she wants to freeze this moment in time, have it all stop except for Lisa and her and the little life inside her, the happiest she’s been since she lost everything else in her life.

Crooks and some of the lads on base throw them a ripping celebratory party two weeks after the Albert Hall to really commemorate their successful performance. Kate’s spent those two weeks searching for suitable accomodations close to Flitcroft, making all the preparations to move out. Lisa’s been invaluable in the process, and also with her encouragement and support as Kate finally decides to tell the choir that she’s pregnant. Not that it needs much of an announcement; she’s showing obviously enough that basically everyone can tell the second she steps into the welfare centre where they’re all gathered for the party. A sort of awestruck, slightly disbelieving hush settles over the room when Kate enters and Kate hears Lisa muffle a snort of amused laughter from beside her. She elbows Lisa lightly in the side, but she’s smiling when they head further into the throng of wives milling around the food. “Well, I was going to gather all of you and say a few words proper, but going by your reactions I think that won’t be necessary.”

 _“Kate!”_ Ruby squeals, grinning wide, shocked and excited. “You’re seriously pregnant? You’re really _pregnant?”_

Kate inclines her head; it’s still hard to say _yes_ outright, instinct left behind from years and years before, the three (four) children she lost before their time. The room practically explodes in cheers and congratulations and everyone crowds around Kate to hug her. Lisa slips off to the side to take a few pictures of Crooks’ utterly stunned face for Kate to laugh at later, but once the initial cacophony has died down and the party really starts going, she gravitates back to Kate’s side, squeezing her hand briefly before letting go. Kate doesn’t kiss her, even though she badly wants to; they’ve both decided it’ll be wise not to go public about them just yet. Lisa’s told Kate that Red needs to be the first to know. Her face hadn’t changed when she’d said that, a week back when they were talking in Kate’s kitchen, but it’d still made Kate waver for a moment.

Thinking about it makes her waver again. She’s so happy with Lisa, the kind of happy she wouldn’t have believed she’d be able to feel again three months ago, but it’s so much more than just _them,_ and can she really live with herself, if a new family of her own comes at the cost of another -

“I told you they’d be so happy for you,” Lisa murmurs in her ear, close enough that nobody else can hear, especially over the din of some truly terrible karaoke that Dawn and Helen are dueting. “You look beautiful, Kate. I love you.”

 _I love you too,_ Kate thinks, and decides to forget about the rest of it, at least for tonight.

Red has a video-call with Lisa scheduled for Monday the week after the party. Kate spends the day at home busying herself with baking far too many muffins than even the choir could eat to keep her mind off wondering how the call goes. Lisa’s already resolved to tell him, unwilling to lie to him about everything that’s happened at home while he’s off at war. Kate watches the oven timer tick down and keeps coming back to the needling fear that she’ll talk to him and decide that being with Kate isn’t worth losing her family after all. Maybe that’d be the right thing to decide. Kate wishes she was a better person, wishes she could want Lisa to be a loyal wife and a dedicated mum more than she wants Lisa to be hers.

She knows she won’t talk Lisa out of it, if she decides to end things after all. She’d never be able to live with herself if she did that. But the thought of being alone again just makes her go cold. She thinks she could survive it - she’s survived so much already - she just doesn’t know if she would want to. She isn’t sure.

Lisa comes over that night two hours later than she’d told Kate to expect her. Her eyes are very red and her smile is wobbly, but she still pulls Kate close and gives her a gentle kiss before anything else. “Hi,” she murmurs. She’s smiling; she’s trying to smile for Kate. “House smells amazing. What were you doing all day?”

“I found a recipe for carrot cake muffins,” Kate replies, by way of explanation. “How did it go?”

“I’m not going to lie, that sounds disgusting. Muffins should be chocolate,” Lisa says. Her voice is light but it doesn’t fool Kate. She touches her forehead to Kate’s, going quieter, the ache bleeding into her words. “He was - really, really angry with me. I mean, obviously. He said I was a pretty shitty wife and that he’s going to serve divorce papers once he gets back in three months and he wants Frankie to live with him if she wants, and that he really fucking hoped you were worth it.” Kate can hear the pain she’s feeling, the guilt, and it makes her heart break. “I talked to Frankie too. Thought it would be best to get it all out. She was so fucking angry, Kate. I didn’t know she could shout that loudly. She said she’s staying with a friend until she stops wanting to slap me every time she looks at me. Can’t blame her, I guess. Called her friend’s mum and told her I’d go over and give her some cash tomorrow, cover expenses until Frankie’s ready to come home.”

Kate feels the horror flooding through her veins, the disbelief. Her throat is choked with half-formed words, things she wants to say but can’t. Lisa pulls back and looks at her, and her expression shifts into something like fear, like anguish. “Kate,” she says, raw, charged with emotion. “Kate, don’t - please don’t look at me like that, please, they hate me and I won’t survive you hating me too, please - “

“I don’t hate you,” _I could never hate you, I love you, I love you._ Lisa chokes back a sob and composes herself with a significant effort. “You’re worth it,” she whispers, and for a long, cold moment, Kate wonders if she’s trying to convince herself. “I know I’m the worst wife in the world, the worst mum, I know I should be better than this, but - he asked if you were worth it, Kate. And I couldn’t even imagine saying no.”

She doesn’t say anything more. Kate kisses her, just one chaste kiss in her front hall, then leads her to the kitchen for muffins.

Kate settles on the new house she’s staying in, fifteen minutes’ drive from the garrison, living beside a lovely couple who bring over a stew when she starts moving things in. The choir volunteers to help shift all her things. Lisa joins in, of course; so does Frankie, to Kate’s very great shock. She helps Ruby and Sarah set up her new dresser in Kate’s room and is perfectly polite to Kate, but there’s a coldness in her attitude that Kate picks up on, so different from the first time she had Frankie in her kitchen after she got plastered. It makes Kate’s heart hurt but she knows she couldn’t expect anything different.

It takes a week to move everything in; by the time the last of Kate’s belongings are at the new house, pretty much only Lisa and Frankie are left lending a hand. Lisa takes the last few boxes up to the tiny attic space and Kate ends up making tea in the kitchen while Frankie silently watches. They sip from their cups without talking; Frankie’s gaze keeps dropping to the swell of Kate’s stomach. It’s what eventually breaks the silence. “Do you know the gender yet? Have you found out?”

Kate shakes her head. “It’s a little early for that. It’s only been sixteen weeks.”

Frankie doesn’t respond; they both keep drinking their tea while Lisa clomps noisily around upstairs settling Kate’s things. Kate thinks she should say something but she doesn’t know what.

“I went back home last week,” Frankie finally speaks again after she finishes her tea; Kate already knows this, but she doesn’t interrupt. “Could tell Mum was getting worried.”

 _Worried_ is an understatement; Kate got to watch Lisa get progressively more scared that Frankie would really never forgive her and wouldn’t come back until Red got home from Afghanistan. Kate doesn’t say anything, still - it doesn’t sound like Frankie is finished. She waits, patient, and Frankie cobbles her words together, slow, obviously trying not to be cruel and cutting with the things she wants to say. “I’m still angry with her. I’m angry with _you,”_ she says. “I know you lost your family, Kate, and I know it’s not the same, but it still feels like I’m losing mine.”

“I’m sorry, Frankie,” says Kate. It’s inadequate, but there’s not much more she feels she can offer. “I - I wish things could be different.”

Frankie arches an eyebrow. “Do you?” She shakes her head and doesn’t wait for a response. “I don’t forgive Mum. And I don’t like living on the base, but I think I’ll stick with Dad when he gets back.”

She pauses. It’s a long pause, enough time for Kate to finish her own tea, hands clutching her mug tight, something solid to hold on to. Her voice is softer and gentler when she continues. “I don’t think I’ll be angry with her forever. I just think I need time. I still love her. She’s my mum.”

“She loves you too,” says Kate. Frankie smiles. “I know. And - “ She sucks a breath in, looking thoughtful, resigned. “She loves you. It’s so, she’s so obvious about it. The way she talks about you, she never talked about Dad like that before. Ever. I think that’s the only reason why I know I could forgive her one day. Because she’s not trying to hurt anybody here. She’s just - she really is just here because she loves you.”

Kate nods. She takes Frankie’s cup and her own, heads to the sink to wash them, so she can keep her head down, so Frankie won’t see her cry.

Lisa takes her to her next ultrasound, at eighteen weeks. She holds Kate’s hand while the doctor runs the transducer over her abdomen, pointing at the screen and telling them everything they need to know. Kate looks at the fuzzy black and white picture on the screen and holds back her tears with an effort. Five pregnancies and it never gets any more miraculous, seeing a human being growing and developing inside her. When she glances at Lisa, her expression is wonderstruck too, eyes shining, and it makes something in Kate’s heart settle. Lisa loves her - loves all of her. She does.

“Would you like to know the gender now?” The doctor asks, and Kate shakes her head before she even finishes the question. “Not now. I’d like - I’d like it to be a surprise.”

“That’s fine. Otherwise, everything looks good. You’re doing well, Kate, your baby looks healthy. Just be careful, keep taking all the precautions you’ve already been taking. You shouldn’t need any further scans, but we’ll take things as they come. You can give the clinic a ring any time you need.”

Kate nods and thanks her, heads out with Lisa’s hand against the small of her back, helping her into the car. She doesn’t drive off when she gets in, though, just looks curiously at Kate. “I didn’t know you wanted to be surprised.”

Kate swallows hard and looks away. “I don’t want to talk about it,” she says, and Lisa immediately drops it, whispering _sorry_ and squeezing Kate’s hand before starting the car. Kate squeezes back, then turns to look out the window and tries to keep her breathing even. She just… can’t. She’s thought about it, even started idly thinking about names. Fiona, for a girl, or Janet, or Elizabeth; she likes that last one, for more reasons than one.

She thinks about naming a boy, if it ends up being a boy, and the thought steals the breath from her lungs. She can’t think about it too long without feeling the panic dredging up from the pit of her stomach. She just thinks about Jamie, her boy, her miracle, who she and Richard sent off to die halfway around the world for a war she lost her husband to, a war she hates -

She closes her eyes, leans her head against the window, and doesn’t open them again until they get home.

Red comes home eight weeks after her ultrasound. Lisa’s been driving down to her place every single day without fail, staying over once in a while when Frankie’s sleeping over with a friend. She hasn’t moved in, not exactly, but she tells Kate quite frankly that once Red gets back she probably will within forty-eight hours, because she knows he doesn’t want her in his home.

Lisa turns up at her front door the night he returns not carrying much more than she usually does; her eyes aren’t red either, and her voice is steady. She presses close to Kate on the couch while they put on a movie to fall asleep to. Kate finds in herself the courage to lean in and kiss her temple. “You okay?”

Lisa rests her cheek against her shoulder, eyes fixed on the screen. “I’m with you,” she murmurs in reply, and that’s the end of that.

The divorce isn’t instant; there’s a _lot_ of paperwork to do, there’s Frankie to consider, and the bureaucracy is what it is. For all means and purposes, though, it’s over. Lisa slowly starts moving her things over, and within two weeks she’s basically permanently installed herself in Kate’s home. It’s something Kate is pretty damn thankful for, because the pregnancy gets harder the further in she goes. It’s been _years_ since Jamie, and she’s so much older now - tired, weaker, always aching. She stops leaving the house unless she absolutely has to because the simplest trip to the grocery store and back has her exhausted. She craves different foods but she can’t always keep them down. It’s hard to sleep, or walk around, or do anything, really.

Lisa is there through all of it. She runs out at odd hours to buy Kate whatever weird crap she’s craving at that instant even when she’s got a shift to work four hours later. She does all the grocery runs, she makes dinner, she gets the other wives to drop in and check in on Kate if she’s stuck at work or something. She stays up when Kate can’t sleep and talks to her, even when she’s exhausted too, makes Kate feel less alone. Kate didn’t know it was possible but it feels like she loves her more with every single day.

It’s not to say that everything’s a fairy tale. They’re still innately the people they were at the beginning, before they were friends, before they fell in love. Kate is still stubborn, still wants things done a certain way and can’t abide when they aren’t, can still be sharp-tongued and cold. Lisa’s temper is short and hot, and she retains her tendency towards cutting snark and impulsive impatience. It doesn’t help that she’s working through the divorce, that Kate’s all over the place because of the pregnancy.

They argue, and they fight. At thirty weeks in Kate says something needlessly awful that sets Lisa off, that ends with her telling Kate she’s cold-hearted and uptight, that if she’s going to treat her child the way she treats Lisa she’s going to be a fucking shit mum. She slams the door as she leaves for work and Kate sits on the couch and thinks about Jamie, about how she’d tried and failed to stop him from enlisting and how she’d sent him off to die.

She’s ten weeks from her due date and she still can’t think about giving birth to a boy without wanting to throw up. She can’t stop worrying about all the what-ifs; bar Jamie, it’s her longest pregnancy yet without complications and the more time passes the more afraid she gets, her hopes getting higher and her fear with it. She thinks about the three trees she planted, still growing, and the headstones in the Flitcroft cemetery, side by side. She wonders if maybe, this time, she’d be okay losing this baby as long as she got to follow it to the grave.

Lisa comes home five hours later having begged off her shift early, carrying flowers and the disgustingly greasy chips from the chippy Kate hated until the pregnancy cravings kicked in. She holds Kate tight and buries her face against her shoulder and whispers _sorry, sorry, I’m sorry_ until she’s hoarse. Kate hugs her, and doesn’t say anything else.

Thirty-two weeks in, and Kate wakes up late one Saturday morning to find Lisa still in bed beside her, looking through a sheaf of papers, circling some things and underlining others. “What are you doing?”

“Preparing,” says Lisa, without taking her eyes off the papers. “Making sure I know what to pack for when we go to the hospital, and the best route to take if we need to get there fast… stuff like that.”

“My my,” Kate murmurs, not without a teasing lilt to her words. “Aren’t we organised? Should I get you some post-its to make notes on?”

Lisa snorts. “Very funny. Guess you’re a bad influence on me.” She leans over to drop a gentle kiss against Kate’s stomach through her soft shirt, and Kate feels her heart melt. “You’ve got the most organised mum in the world, buddy. I bet she’s going to have you bullet journaling before you’re three.”

“I am _not!”_

“You say that _now,”_ Lisa grins. “They’ll be playing the piano by primary school, I bet. At the ABRSM Grade Two level. Or they’ll sing in the choir, with us - “

Kate thumps her lightly with a pillow and Lisa laughs, kicking it off the bed. She carefully sets the papers aside and snuggles down with Kate again. “Seriously, though. You’ll want them to join the choir, right? Be musically inclined, at the very least?”

 _I just want them to be alive,_ Kate thinks. _Alive and happy and I don’t want them to enlist, I don’t ever want to lose another child to this endless fucking war. I want to love them and I never want to bury them, never again._

“If they can read music I’ll be happy,” she says instead, because it’s too early to think about the rest of it, and she doesn’t want to watch Lisa get sad and serious when she can hear Lisa laugh and prod her lightly in the ribs instead. “Arsehole! I can read music now, I _learned_ for you, the things I do for you - “

“Like learn the fastest route to the hospital without breaking the traffic code - “

“Actually, the absolute fastest route I figured out has us doing two illegal turns, but I feel like if we get pulled over you can just play the pregnant card - “

Kate laughs; it feels like hot joy in her chest, pure and real. She’s happy. She’s so happy. She wants to be this happy, forever.

Lisa turns out to actually be serious as all hell about the planning; apparently she and Red were a little devil-may-care about it all when Lisa was pregnant with Frankie and they both forgot their wallets (and all identification and money in them) in the rush to the hospital, which makes for a damn funny story seventeen years later but was definitely not funny then. She has a sturdy bag identified and placed on a convenient shelf in the living room, and she’s made a neat list of everything that’ll need to go into it when they’re ready to head to the hospital. She even takes a spare weekend to do a test drive down her ‘absolute fastest completely legal route’ to the hospital to make sure she knows the way. Kate teases her about it, a little - if Kate of months ago, making the decision to offer her help with corralling the wives because she didn’t have faith in Lisa’s leadership, saw Lisa _now,_ she’d probably never believe it. It makes her laugh.

Two weeks later - a good six weeks before she’s due - Kate’s water breaks, way too fucking early, and suddenly it stops being funny. She screams for Lisa and Lisa comes immediately.

She remembers the expression on Lisa’s face, shifting from confusion to shock to fear, the terror so evident in her eyes even as she tries to stay calm. “It’s going to be okay,” she remembers Lisa saying. Her voice the loudest thing in Kate’s world. “It’s going to be okay, Kate, I promise, it’s going to be okay - “

_I promise -_

Lisa always keeps her promises -

_It’s going to be okay -_

_Kate it’s okay it’s okay stay with me we’re almost there -_

_Kate -_

everything hurts it hurts so badly she can’t breathe she can’t speak the world is blurry like colourful smudges in front of her eyes, all white and all red -

there’s blood there’s more blood than there should be she knows it’s wrong it’s all wrong - she’s twenty-four again calling for richard in her living room and she knew she knew she knew _no please my boy my baby boy, katie i thought i lost you katie -_

he died her children that never got to be died and her son followed and her husband followed and she wants - what does she want -

_no please no_

_alive and happy and -_

so much blood she can’t see she doesn’t want to see she doesn’t want her baby to die she doesn’t want - she doesn’t want to die, she doesn’t want to die,

there’s a hand in hers, familiar, a voice in her ear - she squeezes tight and the words slur off her tongue - _i don’t want to die. i don’t want to die. lisa, i don’t want to die -_

she loves her she loves lisa so much lisa loves her, lisa gave everything up for her -

_you’re worth it_

_i don’t want to die_ kate thinks _i don’t want to do to her what richard did to me please please_

_i don’t want to die -_

she thinks she’s awake? alive? but she isn’t sure and everything is fuzzy and grey and darkening around the edges - the world is cotton wool, her fingertips numb, and nothing feels right, nothing feels _real_ -

except, suddenly, for the whisper in her ear - strangely distant and yet resoundingly clear, like nothing in the world exists besides it -

_katie. eyes open. stay awake._

she knows that voice. she’s known that voice half her life -

_be here. you have to stay right here. always be here -_

_i’ll always be here -_

_jamie?_ she thinks, and then it’s not a thought, not just a thought, she knows, she _knows._ they’re so close, him and richard, they’re so, so close - she just needs to reach out, just a step, just an arm’s length away. just has to say his name -

her tongue curling around syllables in her mouth, pushing air out between her lips -

 _no,_ she hears. stern. firm. _katie? eyes open. it’s going to be okay._

just a name, kate thinks, just two syllables, just -

an exhale -

“Lisa - “

“I’m here. Kate, I’m here, just hold on for me, please. _Please._ It’s going to be okay, you have to be okay. Just stay awake. _Please - “_

The world is white when she wakes up again.

Kate blinks. A little more colour comes into her field of vision; still mostly white. She realises after a moment she’s in a small, quiet room - white walls, cold, smelling clean and sharp. She takes a long, shaky breath and brings her gaze down. There’s a figure by her side - by the bed, slumped over, sleeping. It takes her another moment to realise she’s holding her hand. _Lisa._

“Lisa?” She manages, barely a croaky whisper. Lisa jerks up instantly like a shot, blinking herself to alertness; in the second she does, Kate looks down at herself, in plain, clean hospital clothing, her stomach flat like it hasn’t been in months - the panic rising inside her as she looks frantically around the room, seeing nobody but Lisa and herself. “Lisa? Lisa - where’s the baby? Where’s my baby? _Where - “_

“Shh,” Lisa says. Her voice is raspy too; she looks pale and tired, her hair a mess, but her eyes are bright. “Shh, hey, Kate. It’s okay. She’s fine. She’s in the NICU, because she’s pre-term and all - but she’ll be okay. I saw her, she’s beautiful - she’s going to be fine.”

A sob tears itself from Kate’s throat, a surge of emotion rising higher and higher, cresting over her, pouring out. Lisa cups her face with both hands, murmuring soft and sweet to her, kissing her tears away. A girl, her little girl - alive. Safe and alive. “Can I see her? I need to see her, Lisa, _please.”_

Lisa shakes her head, looking pained. “You have to stay in bed, and she has to stay in the NICU. You can’t get up, that’s what the doctors said.” She gestures to Kate’s other side and Kate notices the drip in her arm that she didn’t even realise was there. Lisa strokes her cheek with her thumb, exhaling slowly. “They said you nearly died, Kate. You could have. I almost lost you.”

 _Richard,_ Kate remembers with a jolt. _Jamie._ She heard them. She could swear to it - Richard’s familiar baritone, telling her to stay awake. For her baby. For Lisa.

“I’m here,” she says. She feels Lisa shudder and nod. Holding her, just holding her tight. “I’ll never leave you. I promise.”

_I promise._

She learns, later, how terrifying her delivery had been for everyone around her, how close they’d been to losing both her and her daughter. Lisa’d almost been kicked out of the room for not being family; she’d called Crooks in desperation to enlist his help from even further up the chain of command. She’s been checking in on the baby every hour or so, looking in through the glass outside the NICU, until Kate’s given the all-clear to get out of bed and come to see her daughter for herself.

The rest of the choir visits in small groups, spacing out their visits so they don’t tire Kate out. Frankie drops by too, bearing flowers with a little hand-written card saying _congratulations_. She carefully places the flowers on the bedside table and gives Kate a quick hug. “I’m glad you’re okay,” she says shyly. “Annie and Jess are here to see you. I’m going to go up to the NICU with Mum, I’ll be back later.”

“Okay,” Kate whispers. Her heart is so full, she feels like it could burst, she thinks - _so, this is love._

It takes two days before Kate’s allowed to get out of bed. The minute she’s cleared, Lisa’s there with a wheelchair and helping her get into it. “It’s a long walk to the NICU,” she says in response to Kate’s faint protests that she’s fine on her feet. “If you collapse on the way there and the doctors confine you to bed for another two days that’ll be your own fault. Come on.”

So she goes, heart rabbit-quick in her chest as they get closer to the NICU. Lisa exchanges some words with the doctors and nurses on duty; they’re given masks and gloves and then Lisa’s wheeling her in, closer and closer, until they reach an incubator and Lisa stops. “There she is. Isn’t she beautiful?”

Kate can’t respond, her words stolen, on the wind - she can’t stop staring at the little girl in the incubator, tiny, smaller than Jamie was when he was born. Sleeping soundly. Breathing, growing, alive. “The doctors say she’s doing great. She should be okay to leave the NICU in a week, tops.”

Kate nods in acknowledgment, still speechless, throat choked. She reaches for Lisa’s hand and Lisa takes it without hesitation. She knows, right then, the name that she’s decided. “Elizabeth,” she whispers, fingers brushing the plastic of the incubator. “My darling.” She tightens her grip on Lisa’s hand. “Our little girl.”

She feels Lisa freeze; when she looks up, her eyes are wet, expression hopeful yet disbelieving. Kate manages a watery smile and tugs her hand gently so her gaze turns back to Elizabeth. “Lisa. _Look_ at her. Our daughter.”

Lisa’s jaw clicks as she works it, swallowing and discreetly bringing her hand to her eyes to wipe away her burgeoning tears. “Yeah. Our little warrior.”

 _Our little miracle,_ Kate thinks. Hers. _Theirs._ A new beginning.

Lisa wheels Kate back to her room after they’re done in the NICU, helps her back into bed. Kate stops her before she can get back in her chair and shifts so there’s just enough space on the bed for Lisa to fit. Lisa sighs, though her lips twitch. “I don’t think the doctors would approve of me squeezing with you on your hospital bed, Kate.”

“I want you beside me,” says Kate, and Lisa capitulates, carefully easing onto the bed and making sure not to jostle her. She rests her head against Lisa’s chest, listening to her heartbeat, enjoying the slow sweep of Lisa’s fingers through her hair. She’s tired again, wants to drift off, content in the knowledge that her daughter is safe in the NICU, that soon she’ll be given to Kate to hold in her arms and bring home and raise as her own. She has Lisa beside her ready to love her and Elizabeth to the end of their days. She will miss Richard for the rest of her life, will always wish Jamie had come home, wish she could’ve raised three other children along with him - but this is enough. Her family, this new family, right here, is enough.

“Hey,” Lisa murmurs softly, just before Kate nods off. “I didn’t know you’d decided on a name. Why Elizabeth?”

Kate smiles. “I like what it means. ‘God is plenty’. ‘God is abundance’. Like a blessing,” she explains. “It’s a strong name. A lot of queens and empresses have had it. But most importantly…” She opens her eyes, just enough to meet Lisa’s gaze. “It’s a name from which ‘Lisa’ is frequently derived. I want her to be like you.”

Lisa is quiet; she inhales slowly, a little shakily, and kisses the top of Kate’s head. “I love you,” she says, sounding overcome, fiercely genuine, _happy_. “I love our daughter. Both of you. Forever.”

Real. A prayer. A promise. Lisa keeps all her promises. Kate knows she always will.


End file.
